Machine Wash vs. Hand Wash

My name is Daniel. I manage the East Greenwich branch of The Did You Know? Store. I have a story I'd like to tell, a blog I'd like to post...

So I had a few friends over my apartment the other night. I was showing them around, giving them the grand tour, the whole deal. When I took them into the kitchen, one of them commented on how nice it must be to have all the modern amenities that my kitchen had. They were especially impressed that I had a brand new dishwasher. When I told them that I had never so much as opened the thing, they were confused. Why would someone who has a perfectly good, perfectly new dishwasher never use it? The truth is, I never really thought about it. I grew up in a house that didn't have a dishwasher so I was not used to using one. I had always taken the old fashion approach. I had always washed my dishes by hand. I also just assumed that washing by hand was more environmentally friendly. Then my friend shook my world.

"You know that dishwashers are better for the environment" he said.

"No I didn't" I replied.

When they left, I did some research. Here's what I found.

I was happy to find an entire article on this very subject on treehugger.com. What I discovered surprised me a little. It might surprise you too. According to research, dish washing machines are usually the more efficient of the two approaches in washing those dirty dishes. Overall, they use less energy and less water than hand washing. There is a catch though, so don't worry if you live in a house without a dishwasher like i did. "If you can keep the water use low, equal to an efficient machine, you'll require less energy, but doing an entire load of dishes in 4 gallons of water (the amount of water an efficient machine uses) is roughly equivalent to doing them all in the same amount of water you use in 96 seconds of showering."

Basically, the numbers indicate that it's possible to be as efficient when hand washing, but it's pretty tough. An approach that would guarantee less water usage, as opposed to running the water on half blast, is to fill a basin of water and use it to wash the dishes. It is easy to lose track of the gallons of water flowing down the drain when you leave the faucet on and filling something with water and turning the faucet off is a good way to prevent that from happening.

So what is the verdict? Who is the winner?

Well, that's up to you.